


The First Time Around

by CarthagoDelenda



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/M, Heir Guitar, Hope's Peak, Hope's Peak AU, Other, SDR2 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:56:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CarthagoDelenda/pseuds/CarthagoDelenda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sure, this wasn’t what she’d loved at first, but she loved them all the same, as someone who could be everything she’d loved and more besides. And now enough was enough. She couldn’t let them go without that love anymore - and if this was the measure she had to take to do that, she’d do it a million times until it worked.</p><p>Secret Santa gift for tuftedeer!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Time Around

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays, everyone! Especially for tumblr user tuftedeer, for whom this is a Secret Santa gift! I had a lot of fun writing it and I hope you like it. 
> 
> Contains SDR2 spoilers up through Chapter 5. This takes place during the SDR2 characters' first year at Hope's Peak.

Ibuki didn’t want to consider that they wouldn’t show up at all. But the letter she’d slipped under their dorm room door had told them to meet her in the music room by five o’clock, and they hadn’t arrived yet, even though it was three minutes past.

She’d been sitting on the edge of the stage for almost half an hour, kicking her legs back and forth and watching the seconds tick by on her phone’s main display. She hadn’t paid so much attention to the time since she’d skipped breakfast and lunch to cram for physics, then had to wait at the hamburger place for over twenty minutes while they fixed the french fry boiler because Hiyoko-chan refused to go anywhere else to get the french fries she wanted. Ibuki had been so hungry, and so impatient, that Mahiru-chan had had to take her phone away to stop her from calling out the time every thirty seconds…

But that memory didn’t stay long before Ibuki pushed it away. As easily as she could be distracted, this was an important undertaking, and she’d have to conquer that part of herself to pull it off right - if, at this rate, it ended up happening at all.

She’d been counting on at least one of her friends agreeing to hang around in the dorm hallway after last period to see if they’d gotten the letter, but Mahiru-chan was up for talent evaluations, Mikan-chan, quote, “didn’t want to be a bother”, and Hiyoko-chan had made fun of her (“A _letter_? What is this, the fifties?”). Satou-chan had agreed at first, but then something had come up with the girls in her class - she’d seemed evasive about what exactly - and she’d had to cancel. She did assure Ibuki that it would go alright, that even if they didn’t show up it didn’t necessarily mean a rejection, and that it wasn’t like she wouldn’t see them again in class on Monday. Besides, she added as an afterthought, they didn’t have any reason to refuse her, since people weren’t exactly lining up to confess to them.

Ibuki had made a fuss of that as usual, feeding Satou-chan all the usual lines about how she didn’t understand, but only out of dedication - she’d really given up the fight long before. Of course Satou-chan only thought she was struck dumb by love. She couldn’t make sense of it; none of them had and Ibuki was starting to wonder whether they ever would.

If she’d only done this two weeks ago they would have clamored for the chance to spy on Byakuya-chan for her. Not just them, either, but also Sonia-chan and Akane-chan and even Peko-chan if they could have convinced her to join them. She could imagine them clustered around him as she sat across the room, dropping hints on purpose and giggling in her direction, then coming back over and giving her their advice on how to impress the man who had everything…

But nothing like that could happen now, not since the heir to the Togami corporation had made untold millions day-trading stocks. Now a simple Internet search turned up perhaps more than anyone had ever been meant to know about Byakuya Togami. It wasn’t clear just how much Hope’s Peak had planned to support the Impostor in the event that they were compromised - the teacher said “Impostor-san” instead of “Togami-san” at roll call now, but that was about the extent of it. The rest, as far as they could tell, was on the Impostor. It was their talent, after all, to change and fit in. Why, Ibuki was sure they had thought, would such a thing be a challenge for them?

She shut her phone with a _snap_ and flung it aside. It flew right into the open-top piano, but she didn’t hear anything break so she didn’t care to get it _._ She didn’t have any more time to waste, not when Impostor-chan would be arriving any minute. She stood, walked back over to her guitar, picked it up, and picked at the strings, tuning them one by one.

She ran through the lyrics in her mind as she went, and wondered how they would react when they heard them. Would they smile, possibly, like they had in the past? It had been so long since Ibuki had seen them smile that she could hardly remember - no no, she couldn’t think about that right now. If she did, she might not be able to get them out of her mind when they did arrive…but it really was hard to think about Impostor-chan without remembering how they’d changed.

So she remembered when Impostor-chan had been Byakuya-chan - domineering multibillionaire, careful and intelligent company heir, a man so confident he’d stopped the weight jokes in their tracks by sheer force of will. He hadn’t smiled much at first, even then, but from the beginning she’d gone wild over his confidence, the way the power of his presence filled whatever room he was in, his ability to direct others and restore order. She couldn’t really help but yell and cheer after every speech he made, compliment and vouch for him everywhere he could, and even, after following a particular train of thought, imagine his smile even when she couldn’t see it, and wonder just what his arms might feel like wrapped around her, and everything else besides…!

Her fingers stopped, caught with one string pulled back, but she made herself release them, leaving the note they made to dissipate in the air. She’d been right in the middle of her first round of plans for confessing to Byakuya-chan when he disappeared and Impostor-chan took his place. She remembered her own surprise and shock. The anger and confusion of her classmates. She remembered how Impostor-chan had tried to explain themselves, their reasoning and their past, first again and again and then less frequently, until they fell silent altogether.

 _But wasn’t that better?_ she could still hear them say, whispering but always just loud enough that Impostor-chan could hear.  _No matter how they try to explain themselves, didn’t they still lie to us about who they were? Do they really expect us to accept lying as a talent?_

She’d feared worse at first, but no one had tried to take any revenge beyond the worst of all - ignorance, which Impostor-chan returned in kind. One day they’d showed up with their hair shaved to the roots and no one said a word - no one except Ibuki, who tried to ask them why but got no response. They blended perfectly into the background, never raising their hand and never getting called on. It was as if Byakuya-chan had transferred out entirely.

They did try to impersonate someone else after a while, a girl with blue-green hair and snakebite piercings who’d introduced herself as Hana Miyako in a curse-filled rant at the homeroom teacher. Ibuki had to admit Hana-chan _was_ mega-ultra-cute, even if there was something off about her, something forced and unnatural she couldn’t quite place, but she only lasted a few days of persistent ignorance before Impostor-chan returned, for all that Impostor-chan could be present. Back to invisibility, back to silence. 

Her fingers fell faster across the strings, playing something that paid no resemblance to a song. She’d felt betrayed too, but only for a short time - and she couldn’t figure out why no one else had had the epiphany she’d had. Impostor-chan hadn’t been lying. There wasn’t any way they could, really. They really _had_ been Byakuya-chan, even if they hadn’t been born and raised as him, hadn’t they? And Hana-chan, too, and everyone else before them?

It was just how they were, she knew now. They were always changing, like everyone else, but in a way that was all their own, that truly embodied their talent. After all, Ibuki hadn’t always been the way she was now, even if she hadn’t changed her name. Two years ago she’d had black hair, no piercings, and she’d thought pop was the only music that mattered. Were her changes that any different from the way Impostor-chan had changed?

Sure, this wasn’t what she’d loved at first, but she loved them all the same, as someone who could be everything she’d loved and more besides. And now enough was enough. She couldn’t let them go without that love anymore - and if this was the measure she had to take to do that, she’d do it a million times until it worked.

She wanted to wonder what her friends thought she would do - but before she could she heard what had to be footsteps. She stopped playing mid-note, and sure enough the door to the music room creaked forward slightly, then opened all the way.

He stood in the entryway for a time, turned his head around the room, then stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. Ibuki couldn’t believe her eyes. His hair, his glasses, even the white suit he’d worn when classes weren’t in session - she’d almost forgotten what they’d all looked like. But the ramrod posture and proud look in his eye made the persona; without them the rest of his appearance was nothing more than a setpiece. He looked up at her, folded his arms across his stomach, and narrowed his eyes behind his glasses.

“Mioda,” he said.

“Byakuya-chan-?!” Ibuki put her guitar back on its stand and jumped down from the stage. “You’re-”

“Here? Yes I am. Don’t waste your time gawping and stating the obvious.” Byakuya-chan tilted his head down, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, then looked back up. “Why did you call me here?”

“Oh - right, Ibuki called you!” Ibuki tried to lean casually against one of the benches, but it was shorter than she’d expected and she only ended up looking lopsided, let alone far from casual. “You did get Ibuki’s letter, even if Ibuki didn’t tell you there was a letter or give you any indication she was sending a letter at all -”

“Yes, I got your letter,” Byakuya-chan interrupted. “But given how unnecessarily vague it was, I’m asking you now what purpose you had in sending it.”

“Well!” Ibuki pushed herself up from the bench, and jumped up and down where she stood. It was such an easy thing to say, but Byakuya-chan’s sudden appearance had thrown her so off-guard her voice was no longer working. The hair was clearly a wig, the suit rumpled and stained…but why? Why was it there at all? Could she even ask? She could, perhaps - but not as directly as she might like.

“Ibuki has something very important to show Byakuya-chan!” she finally said. “So Ibuki wants Byakuya-chan to listen very carefully!”

“Listen?” Byakuya-chan’s eyes slid to the guitar on the stage. “Are you…playing me a song?”

“Gahh! How’d you know?” Ibuki shouted with mock surprise.

“I…figured,” Byakuya-chan said. “Is…are any of the others coming?”

“Noooo!” Ibuki trilled. “It’s just you and Ibuki!”

“It’s…I knew that. I was just making sure.” Byakuya-chan’s posture shifted slightly, and he walked away from Ibuki and sat on the frontmost bench. “Well?” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

“Nothing anymore!” Ibuki jumped back up on the stage, pulled a stray pick out of her shoe, grabbed the guitar, and slung it across her shoulder. As much as she wanted her questions answered, her knowledge didn’t matter right now. Every glimpse she’d ever seen of Byakuya-chan - of Impostor-chan - flashed through her mind, and she funneled those emotions into her fingertips as they hit the strings. “This one doesn’t actually have a name, but whatever Byakuya-chan wants it to be called, that can be what it is!”, she heard herself call from miles away. “So pay attention if you want to know what to call it!”

She slammed the pick back and forth, creating a wall of sound that filled the entire room, and sang as loud as she could in order to be heard. She wanted to look down at Byakuya-chan, to see how he was reacting, but she couldn’t break her focus, couldn’t stop pulling her thoughts into her words; she thought her goal had been to make them happy, thought that thinking of the rough times would just make it worse, but wouldn’t it be better if they knew someone cared? So she let her thoughts free through her chords and her voice.

The words were simple enough, as they were written specifically to resonate - she’d tried to relate as much as she’d ever felt about being different into an attempt to tell them just how beautiful that difference was, how beautiful THEY were, and Ibuki hadn’t known how to stop saying that so she just went on beyond the normal two-verses-and-a-coda formula. Around the fourth verse she happened to swing her head down to see Byakuya-chan, and when she found she could still sing she continued to look.

For a few seconds he sat still, looking at her with almost no expression, but when he saw her looking at him he looked down, then moved his arms on top of his lap so he could fidget with his hands. Then with a start he straight up straight again, crossing his arms and adopting a stern expression, but then his scowl softened, his arms moved down his chest, his gaze slid aside, and Ibuki could no longer read him exactly. She looked away for a moment, caught up in the roar that ended the final crescendo and as they dissipated in the air Ibuki was struck by just how quiet the room was without them.

“Well? What’d Byakuya-chan think?” she asked, grinning, but Byakuya-chan neither clapped nor lifted his head. Ibuki’s eyes went wide, and, after pulling her guitar off her head, jumped down from the stage and stopped by the bench where Byakuya-chan sat. “Byakuya-chan? Are you sleeping?” She poked him, then retreated, her finger on her lips. “Was Ibuki that bad…?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Byakuya-chan did not turn to face her, but his shoulders did shift slightly. “It was a fine song. There was no problem with the song.”

“Hmmmm, then something else must be bothering Byakuya-chan…” A pit was forming in Ibuki’s stomach. “Are you feeling okay? Do you need to go to the infirmary?”

“I’m fine,” Byakuya-chan said. “We’re done here, aren’t we?”

“Done?” Ibuki pouted. “Done with Ibuki’s song, maybe, but Ibuki isn’t really done until Byakuya-chan’s grinning from ear to ear-”

 “Don’t say that,” Byakuya-chan said suddenly.

“Huh?” Ibuki raised an eyebrow. “What does Byakuya-chan mean?”

“Don’t say you’re going to make me smile.” Byakuya-chan clutched his arms even more tightly. “It doesn’t fit your personality to be so arrogant.”

“Arrogant?” If Ibuki was supposed to be offended, she certainly didn’t feel it - she simply raised an eyebrow. “Well, Ibuki didn’t mean to be arrogant. And Ibuki still doesn’t get why Byakuya-chan would-”

“Why are you calling me that?” Their voice was small, still, and slightly raspy; it was unlike anything Ibuki had ever heard from them before. “That’s not my name.”

Ibuki’s heart grew still. Only now did she realize how foolish she’d been - she wasn’t talking to Byakuya-chan, and she hadn’t been since after the song had begun. “Then what should I call you?” she said.

“Do you really want a name?” Their wig fell forward slightly, revealing the back of their neck and the beginnings of the black hair underneath.

“Ibuki’d like one,” Ibuki said.

They were silent for a time, then shifted around, facing forward rather than away. Their wig obscured their eyes, but they didn’t move to push it away. “It’d be easier not to try to call me anything at all,” they said.

“If you don’t want a name you don’t need one,” Ibuki said, somehow not even needing to think about the words before she said them. “But it’s kind of hard not to have a name.”

“It’s not that I don’t have one,” they said. “It’s that I can’t have one.”

“Everyone can have a name,” Ibuki said. “It doesn’t have to mean anything special. It just has to be a name.”

“You’re assuming there’s something there to be named at all.” They moved their hands up to their scalp and removed the wig. Their hair was short, shorter even than Fuyuhiko-chan’s, so short she could still see their scalp under it. “Even if I had one, why would anyone ever want to use it? It wouldn’t refer to anything.”

“But it’d refer to you.”

“There’s nothing to refer to.” They leaned over further and further, until their head was almost level with their stomach. “They know that. And it’s okay that they know that. They’re better off without it. Worrying about me would just take them away from what I’d want them to have.” They shuddered. “You have a life to live, Mioda. Just now, you showed me…you showed me everything you’re capable of.”

“Then you liked the song?” Ibuki’s eyes lit up - this was what she had been waiting for, the happiness she wanted to be there.

“I…” For the first time in the entire conversation, they looked her directly in the eye. “That’s, yes, but…you’re a woman of tremendous personality. I just… what I’m…” It was an unsteady gaze, one often broken, but it always came back in the end. “What I’m trying to say is, there’s so much you’re capable of. And I wouldn’t want you to do all this for nothing.”

“Nothing? But, Ibuki didn’t do it for nothing.” On a split second’s impulse, Ibuki took both their hands in hers. “Ibuki did it for you! And to Ibuki…you’re the farthest thing from nothing.”

“W-wh-” Their hands stiffened in hers, and their entire expression fell into one of shock - but they didn’t pull their hands away, so and Ibuki knew the moment had come. She came in closer, pushing their arms closer to their chest, then released them and held them around the waist, burying her face in their chest. She could hear the muffled beating of their heart, and the sound only spurred her on. “Ibuki loves you,” she whispered. “She loves you very, very much. And she loves you no matter who you are.”

“You…” She couldn’t see their face, but she felt their heart pounding faster and faster, and the rhythms of their hands trembling at their sides. “That…no…t-that can’t be true.”

“It is,” Ibuki said, gently rubbing the sides of their stomach.

“B-but it doesn’t make any sense…”

“We’ve already been over this.” Ibuki held them even closer, felt their soft skin against hers, then moved her head in the crook of their neck and shoulder, where she could be closest to their ear. “Ibuki loves you. No ifs, ands, buts, or whats.”

“But, you can’t,” they said, their voice low and rough. “It’s…it’s impossible…”

“But that means Ibuki’s impossible,” Ibuki said. “So what do you think of that? Can you and Ibuki be impossible together?”

“Can… _can_ …” They sat frozen for what felt like an eternity, but then Ibuki felt a sudden pressure on her back, and her heart leapt in her chest when she realized Impostor-chan was finally returning her embrace. They were shuddering under her touch from the beginning, but soon they were crying, then fighting to talk through their tears, repeating the same words again and again - “I love you, I love you, I love you” - until they broke down into sobbing incoherence.

Ibuki said nothing, not with words, but she smiled into their shoulder, rubbed their back in broad circles, and kissed wherever she could reach. _So this is Impostor-chan,_ she found herself thinking, and she smiled and patted their back and kept the thought in her mind for as long as she could, for as long as they still sat together. But she didn’t forget to take in every detail of their behavior, everything she could love and cherish, so that she could help them see just how special it was, to her and to everyone.

 


End file.
